


Bird Song

by Gray_Days



Series: DC Prompt Fills [2]
Category: DCU, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
Genre: Child Abuse, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Earth-3, Gen, Mirror Universe, Owlman is a monster, Suicidal Ideation, self-harm ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/pseuds/Gray_Days
Summary: Well, I didn’t tell anyone,but a bird flew by,saw what I’d done —he set up a nest outside —





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt on tumblr: [Talon + a deafening sound.](http://cineresis.tumblr.com/post/159507248206/prompt-from-twitter-talon-a-deafening-sound)

They said the Owl of Gotham stole people away in the night.

Dick knew what it meant when _they_ said something. It meant that you could trace the knowledge back from person to person to person who had all thought it was worth sharing, who had all heard it from someone they knew and trusted enough to give the benefit of the doubt, from Marco the knife-thrower to Sally the clown to Sally’s cousin to Sally’s cousin’s best friend’s uncle from Gotham’s oldtown, all the way back until the source of the knowledge disappeared into history. You could tell information was probably reasonably trustworthy when it was written down and you knew where it came from and whether the writer was smart and honest. But it was the things people didn’t write down but that they passed on anyway that were most important. Things like how and why to be respectful, and how to sucker people, and how to keep your balance on a highwire without getting vertigo, and what to do when someone in the circus died, animal or human.

_They_ weren’t really clear on what happened to the people the Owl took away. Luna Alba, the psychic, said that those the Owl didn’t bring before the law were spirited away to his (its?) court, where he (it?) put them under his thrall forevermore. Sally said his cousin’s friend’s uncle had known someone who saw the Owl snatch some poor schmuck who’d wronged him back to his nest, where (the uncle’s acquaintance claimed) the Owl _ate_ them. Haly said the same victim had no doubt been chopped up and dumped in the river or buried in concrete, because the Owl was just a man who’d gone dark like any other lord of Gotham’s underworld. Which Sally said couldn’t be right, because the Owl always left a sign when he took someone so people would know to follow his rules and pay his tithes, and if he left evidence behind someone would find the bodies. At which point Annamaria, Marco’s assistant, pointed out that how would anyone know if he took someone and _didn’t_ leave any sign other than their disappearance?

(Dick remembered thinking that the person the Owl had taken would know, but he didn’t say it aloud because it wasn’t a particularly clever observation and that wasn’t what Annamaria meant, anyway.)

* * *

Dick’s mouth tasted like blood.

He could hear, vaguely, over the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears, the barely-audible scrape of footsteps against the stone floor. Dick tried to get up, but his body wouldn’t respond. A flash of primal fear, sharper and more fundamental than the pall of imminent dread he’d grown used to until it nested deep inside his very bones, flashed through him — a broken spine, neck twisted at an impossible angle, lying helpless and immobile on the ground. Just as swiftly, he shoved it back down into his hindbrain where it belonged. If he’d broken his neck, everything wouldn’t _hurt_ so much.

The footsteps stopped beside him and Dick struggled even more urgently to move. If he couldn’t — if he couldn’t even do something as simple as _standing up_  —

“Can you feel your fingers and toes?” Owlman asked.

The first time he’d heard the Owl’s voice, Dick had thought it was exactly what a ghost should sound like, if Gotham’s spectre was indeed a ghost. Hollow and quiet and resonant, somehow able to find the gaps in your mind and grip them like a grapnel until it filled your skull from edge to edge with no room for anything else. A question like that should sound inherently ridiculous in a voice that spooky. It didn’t. It sounded like a threat. (It _was_ a threat. Everything Owlman said was a threat, even if he wasn’t stating the threat aloud.)

Dick tried to respond. Instead of words, the sound that slipped out between his lips was inarticulate, a half-voiced sob of what little breath hadn’t gotten knocked out of him, practically a whimper. Something inside him cringed in horror and before he could embarrass himself further he gasped for enough air to say, “Nn-hnn.”

That…was _almost_ an affirmative.

“Can you move them?” Owlman asked.

Dick tried. After a moment, his fingers twitched, and he flexed and straightened them before dragging them back into clenched fists. It didn’t hurt as much as he was expecting. He’d scraped the hell out of his hands and torn calluses off before, and he still wasn’t used to the way gloves took some of the pressure off his own skin to stay intact against impact and friction. Having achieved that minuscule success, he did his best to wiggle his toes inside his boots. “Mhm,” he managed. _God,_ his ribs hurt.

Before Owlman could say anything else or get impatient with him, Dick pushed himself up to his hands and knees — his left elbow twinged all the way to his wrist in the process, but at least it didn’t feel broken — and then forced himself nearly to standing before he placed his foot wrong, felt his ankle twist under his weight, and landed right back on his ass. Great going, Talon. Witness the last of the Flying Graysons: he’s beauty, he’s grace, he’s falling on his stupid face.

Owlman stared coldly down at him for a moment, then looked up at the obstacle course around and above them. Deliriously, Dick wondered if fate would be merciful enough for the ground to suddenly open up and swallow him. He wouldn’t have fallen if he hadn’t been trying to avoid a barrage of stun rounds — he _shouldn’t_ have fallen even then — he’d _never_ fallen like that from a simple aerial course unless he was trying some complicated new maneuver, and even then he _knew_ how to recover by now, but his grappling hook had glanced off a stalactite and caught on nothing and by then it was too late to tuck and roll —

“It seems that twenty-six hours awake was too much for you.” Owlman looked in his direction again, and it was only months of relentless training and the bedrock-certain knowledge that it would just piss him off more that kept Dick from flinching. “Clean yourself up and take a nap. You’ll try again in four hours.” He turned away in succinct dismissal.

Dick’s vision was blurring and his breathing was wrong, static prickling in his fingers and toes and creeping up his limbs. He wasn’t even capable enough to be worth yelling at. At least if Owlman had hit him it would mean he thought Dick would learn from it.

“Please.”

He didn’t realise he’d said it until it was out of his mouth, whiny and wretched. He froze as Owlman stopped, then slowly turned and took a step back toward him. “Please _what?_ ” Owlman asked softly.

“Please—” His voice was perfectly even, his face blank as marble, as if showing any expression would make it crack and shatter. “Let me try again.”

“Why?” The question echoed through the cave like a cell door swinging shut. Dick contemplated cutting his tongue out so he’d never say anything stupid ever again. It would probably just get him in more trouble for hurting himself without permission.

“I’ll do it right this time. I know what I did wrong.”

“What makes you think you could accurately fire a grappling hook after falling twenty feet if you couldn’t before?” It was a very calm question. Very reasonable. Very matter-of-fact in how completely it demonstrated that Dick had the intellect of a five-year-old who hadn’t yet learned how cause and effect worked, hadn’t yet learned not to argue with people who knew better, couldn’t yet comprehend shutting his mouth instead of saying things he should already know were illogical. Maybe he could kill himself, if he weren’t more afraid of Owlman than of dying, and if he weren’t utterly certain that Owlman would make him suffer more than he ever could just from dying, whether or not he succeeded. And he was too scared of dying, anyway.

(If he hadn’t been, maybe he could have told someone about the Owl before his parents fell. Except that he wasn’t sure he would have even if he hadn’t known he’d be hunted down and made an example of for it, because when he’d seen that deeper shadow moving in the shadows of the big top, he hadn’t just been scared, he’d been _excited,_ he’d felt like he’d been given a chance to see something _special_ that no one else would ever get, and he’d looked up into the glint of owl-eye lenses and promised aloud that he wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone else. And then Owlman had smiled at him.

So Dick probably deserved to die, which meant that any decision he made himself was the last thing he should do. At least his life could benefit _someone_ as long as he didn’t make any choices ever again.

Except that he wasn’t even good for that, as it turned out.)

When he didn’t answer, Owlman bent and took Dick by the collar. Dick couldn’t help twitching back slightly as the hand approached his throat, expecting Owlman to choke him or beat him into the floor, but all he did was pull Dick to his feet and hold him there so he wouldn’t fall again. “Get cleaned up and take a nap,” he said again, emphasising each word individually in case Dick hadn’t understood the first time. Before Dick’s sluggish thoughts could catch up to what was happening, Owlman swatted him across the face, dispassionately, like disciplining him was a mildly distasteful but necessary task. Dick hit the floor on his hands and knees, ears ringing. _“Don’t_ make me repeat myself again.”

Not trusting his voice, Dick looked up at Owlman and nodded, just once, precise and professional. (Owlman always liked that, anyway. He’d made it clear that he didn’t think anyone should speak unless they had something worth saying.)

Owlman turned and walked away without further acknowledgement. As soon as he was out of range, Dick bolted for his quarters, not waiting for his breathing to settle down enough that he could see straight.

Maybe he could get better. At least he’d been given the chance to try.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Soundtrack:**  
> [Bird Song](https://youtu.be/TFLhS5gJUhk) by Florence + the Machine
> 
> Dick Grayson is nine years old at this point, and Owlman should not be permitted around children, or for that matter anyone else.
> 
> I think Owlman truly believes that this is the best way to prepare a child to excel in the real world, even if his primary aim is to so indoctrinate Dick that he becomes an extension of Owlman's will; like most parents, he is doing his best to raise his part of the next generation how he wishes his parents had raised him, and is therefore teaching Dick clearly and consistently that he knows nothing worth speaking of yet and should therefore stay quiet, obey, and learn until he has something meaningful to contribute that won't get him in trouble he can't get out of. Owlman has never quite understood the point of useless people, or of a sheltered childhood. _(This absolutely does not make it any better.)_
> 
> Lastly, if you liked this story, please consider checking out [my other fics set in this universe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/pseuds/Gray_Days/works?fandom_id=934532)! Knowing that readers have enjoyed my work is one of my greatest motivators to write more.


End file.
